Medusa Road; the answer to the question 'to extend full-width or not?'

We will often have conversations with clients that stem from the perennial question – “should we extend to the full width of our property, or not?”.

Of course there isn’t a simple answer, each project, client and set of constraints is different. However with our Medusa Road project we feel we have answered the question successfully.

Early feasibility sketches with the client during their architect home visit explored the benefits and virtues of extending to the full width of their Victorian terraced house. The first option discussed involved creating an enclosed external courtyard to the side of their rear protrusion, to form a large dining room extension to the full width at the rear. A second more radical option was explored where the existing structure was entirely removed at lower ground floor level, allowing for a large new kitchen / dining extension to the full width of the plot.

Option 1Option 2

We advised our client to carefully consider their options and they decided to take some time to deliberate. During our initial feasibility we had spoken about the possibility of a more modest extension to the width of the rear protrusion, and when they returned to us for further consideration we began to explore this possibility in more depth.

The result was that decreasing the size of the extension in fact improved the aspect of each of the rooms, and of the garden, whilst releasing more budget to do something more architecturally striking. It also had the side effect of defining the different zones internally much more successfully than the two options above, where the extra width created confused spacial proportions.

The design that was built, a cantilevered corner featuring ‘infinity’ glazed sliding doors, substantially enhanced the layout and aspect of the lower ground floor, and the use of robust and minimalist anthracite zinc as a cladding material provided a statement that will wow and stand the test of time.

In conclusion less really can be more, and the answer to the question ‘to extend full width or not’, in this case is convincingly; not.